If you think that stamp collecting is silly, or that it can’t be potentially lucrative, think again. The most expensive postage stamp in the world was just sold at auction in Geneva!

This one-of-its-kind stamp was printed in Sweden in 1857 and is known as the “Treskilling Yellow” or three shilling stamp. It was issued by mistake during a printing run of eight-shilling stamps which are yellow.  Normally, the three-shilling stamp would be green, so this was a mistake.

In 1885, a Swedish schoolboy apparently stumbled on the mistake while looking for stamps to sell for money.  It has passed to many stamp collectors since then, to a German aristocrat and to a Belgium tycoon.  The last time that it was sold, in 1996, it fetched $4.5 million dollars!

The stamp auctioneers did not confirm how much the stamp was sold for this time, or to whom it was sold, but they did confirm that it remained the most expensive stamp every sold.